My frum story
As per lola100's request in her questions to me, I decided to post my frum story.


I grew up in London, Ontario, a smaller city with very few Jews and even fewer religious Jews. (In fact, the number of religious families could be counted on one hand.) I grew up in a pretty Conservative home. We went to shul probably once a month or so, and always for High Holidays. We kept a pretty fair semblance of kosher (meat yes, dairy no, separate dishes). I went to the tiny Jewish Day School there up until grade 6, then switched to public school.

Anyway, I was always more observant than the rest of my family. As a little kid, I would opt to spend my Shabbos mornings in shul with my Bubie, rather than stay home. Since my shul was very egalitarian (then one of the few egalitarian Conservative shuls in Ontario) by the time I was fifteen or so, I was emulating my role models in the shul by coming to shul every week, being active in USY, etc. I even made my own tallis (got the instructions from the Rabbi and followed all the halachas), wore tefillin, and often to myself davened at home in the mornings. I also began keeping Shabbos and eating only dairy out of the house. This went on for about 2 years or so. By the end of the two years though I was starting to feel like something was missing. I'd been over to my Rabbi's house over Shabbos and noticed that his kids were eating non-kosher marshmallows and were turning on and off the lights over Shabbos. I realized that I was more religious than my own Rabbi at this point and that things may have to change.

In the mean time, I met Avri who was active in NCSY and thought I was crazy, but dated me anyway. After meeting him, I started to get to know his parents and friends who were Orthodox. Now, you must understand that it was always drilled into me that Orthodox people were "extreme" and "weird" and since I didn't really know any, there had never been any doubt in my mind that this was the case... but now I did. But this was not what swayed me to the "dark side"...

One day, I was walking down the street in London, and a man from our congregation stopped me to tell me, "What a great thing I was doing for the women's movement and how he wishes that more young girls were like me." These words really struck a chord with me and left me feeling very distressed. Was this the impression I was giving? That I was only doing all these 'feminist' things because I was promoting feminist Judaism? This was not why I was doing these things at all. All I wanted to do was get closer to G-d and this was the only way I knew how. I was not fighting a war for the feminist movement. I was trying to find my place in Judaism. Soon after, I packed up my tallis and tefillin (much to Avri's delight).

I started to learn more about Orthodoxy and within a year of that moment, I began to officially identify myself as an Orthodox Jew. That fall I moved to Toronto. Two years after that and I got married and it's been another 3 1/2 years and we have a beautiful daughter. The future... well that's up to You Know Who (no, not Voldemort!)

If you want more details, feel free to ask away.